Yeah, I think Gulliver went back home. I figured you'd be happy to see the last of him, though some of us REALLY miss him.

But guess what? His friend John (I think you met him too?) is still around-- you can check out his twitter if you like. (I think it's linked on Gulliver's blog? If you can't find it, just say the word and I'll link you. I'm pretty sure I've got the link lying around somewhere.)

So that. Also, if you're interested in poking around our forums some more, there's lots of awesome stuff you can do to help. Most of our energy right now is being put to writing "refictionalizations"-- stories about some of these people in their original settings. Based on your comments on Gulliver's blog and on the forums, I have a feeling you'd be super-good at writing them!

Why are we even arguing about a dead fictional dude and hypothetical ninjas?

Not Your Sayu-chan wrote:i found a weird bottle on the beach yesterday. it had a letter for that guy with the stupid blog! i thought you said he left? why do we have to put up with his litter? i threw it back in the ocean.

Excuse my rudeness, but...YOU FOOL! THE MAN WHO YOU CONSTANTLY BERATED HAS BEEN, FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, SENT TO ANOTHER WORLD! YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST COPIED IT, UPLOADED IT HERE, AND GONE ABOUT YOUR MERRY WAY TO GO CRUSH THE HOPES AND DREAMS OF SOMEONE ELSE! BUT NOOOOO! YOU HAD TO THROW IT BACK INTO THE GOUDA-FORSAKEN OCEAN! ‹exhale› I apologize again for my outburst, but I would like to see how this story ends, and you just metaphorically ripped out the denouement! It's somewhat irritating, to say the least.

Hey, Genndy, Rule 3. Nobody's business if Sayu doesn't like Gulliver; she's being nice even telling us about this.

Sayu, is there any chance you remember what the letter said? Because a lot of us would LOVE to see it.Failing that, well, if the bottle, or another like it, turns up again, we'd REALLY appreciate it if you could copy the letter out for us here before doing whatever with it. I know you don't owe us anything, though.

And I mean, throwing it back into the ocean was probably the responsible thing to do since, after all, the letter wasn't for you or anyone you could actually get it to.

But thanks. ^_^

Why are we even arguing about a dead fictional dude and hypothetical ninjas?

Calm down, Genndy. I'm pretty sure the message is from the refic story that I wrote. Here's the description of the letter that appears in the story:

It was addressed to someone with a strange name, who seemed to be a good friend ofmy neighbor’s, but who hadn’t seen him for some years. It described his life over the course ofthe previous year, and referred to other, preceding letters, for information going further back.

It ended with, “I wish I could hear of your children. By now they must be accomplished andrespected. I should hope they’ve surpassed their father by now. I can’t say he gave them muchof a standard to hold up. Still, at least one of us has a family to carry on his legacy, eh? Thereare times I regret not finding a wife, but then the sea calls to me and I remember that I’m a manwho answers to no one but his own ambitions. Of course, I say ambitions where you might saygreed, but that’s a matter for another discussion. I end this letter, as I end all of these, by sayingyou were the best friend a man could hope to find, and I don’t regret a thing about the time wespent together. Your faithful friend,Long John Silver”

I wrote the story with the intention that LJS would be able to contact Gulliver, sending him a final message, since Mr. A said it would be possible for a message to permeate one story and enter another. This was how I tried to make it up to LJS that we ripped Gulliver from him. So he sends out lots of messages in bottles. It's possible that the one Sayu found is not the one I described in the story, but they all probably have similar elements. If you want to know exactly what was written in the entire letter, I'm sorry, but I declare Death of the Author on this one.

Personally, I'm thrilled to hear that a message made it here. It means that at least one of them did manage to exit Silver's story, which means there's a good chance that at least one of them made it to Gulliver's story.

Never put off until tomorrow what you can put off until the day after.

Not Your Sayu-chan wrote:i found a weird bottle on the beach yesterday. it had a letter for that guy with the stupid blog! i thought you said he left? why do we have to put up with his litter? i threw it back in the ocean.

Excuse my rudeness, but...YOU FOOL! THE MAN WHO YOU CONSTANTLY BERATED HAS BEEN, FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES, SENT TO ANOTHER WORLD! YOU COULD HAVE AT LEAST COPIED IT, UPLOADED IT HERE, AND GONE ABOUT YOUR MERRY WAY TO GO CRUSH THE HOPES AND DREAMS OF SOMEONE ELSE! BUT NOOOOO! YOU HAD TO THROW IT BACK INTO THE GOUDA-FORSAKEN OCEAN! ‹exhale› I apologize again for my outburst, but I would like to see how this story ends, and you just metaphorically ripped out the denouement! It's somewhat irritating, to say the least.

Meta: The letter doesn't matter if Sayu threw it back, she being a....

(Unmeta) THANK YOU VERY MUCH FOR TELLING US. Seriously, the LETTER ITSELF is the denouement.

In life, he suffered from a sense of unreality, as do many Englishmen.